# 0222 020122 i gotta help my mom but i also want to gtfooh before i’m brittle. want to go back to washington or something stupid like that. the sea, the sea, don’t want to be stuck here, but i can’t just abandon her. what do I do? Oh gee, that’s a good question! Definitely potential for some further inquiry there! ADV! 020422 lol, just realized i’ve been attracted to dying industries... bookselling, printing, the post office... and will we be adding “teaching English as a human being” to that list any time soon? Dude, what if I’m a closet narcissist?? 020522 FLASHBACK FRIDAY for the win. Mil & Lib went to get ice cream supplies from pick un save with my credit card, my little rectangle of illusory existing and having agency. My ticket to the balcony seats. Cel is having a sleepover at her funky fresh friend’s house, whose stepdad was working on rebuilding his Honda (and told me so) when I got there and went in to “say hi to a parent” for insisting on doing which I’m a scosh proud of my damn self. Hmmm... weirdly, I actually kind of like the idea of typing on the iPad using UC, and periodically cutting it out of here, switching back to the Mac to paste in something there, or do whatever. It keeps the writing on its own little screen, its own set of processes, its own whole separate device! This is better than a Sidecar display extension because of the device independence, I cannot tell you why. It is cool, though, you gotta admit. I think it’s because if one device does everything, then you don’t end up concentrating on anything. Psychological mumbo jumbo but it’s true. oh my god you can even invoke it after the mac’s screen has locked! This is legitimately actually pretty fucking cool. Well, most of the time that works. 🤷‍♀️ ---- 020822 She’s throwing herself into financial bondage for this fake hogwarts that doesn’t even let her live on campus. In this world, muggle just means poor. Also she’s sick and doesn’t have anyone to take care of her right now, and I feel like shit about that. Isn’t that why she burst into tears at the financial aid office? Because she learned the truth I had been trying to tell her: that she doesn’t belong in her own dream? Another crashing betrayal, just like learning “you can do anything you want to do” doesn’t actually mean you can fly? sitting in an apartment alone, watching roaches crawl behind the kitchen sink, wondering if she’s going to have to go to the doctor again and how she’s going to get there, while her so called friends or boyfriends are either rich and spoiled, poor and cloying, or shrooming and heavily armed—but not available when something really happens. 020922 at least the school health office had antibiotics. tho i had to apple pay her 50 bucks to lyft there and back. i guess she got fired for not calling in when she was in the ER. i feel horrible that shes alone and doesnt know how to be alone and it sucks to be alone even if you do know how and i feel powerless and heartbroken. she needs a real friend group (i get the impression thats difficult for her) and a real job and a real school. because of her kneejerk instinct to only tell me about 70% of any given story i never know how much of this is her “fault” vs the world just being a fucked up unfair place but i can only assume its some of both. but even someones faults arent always 100% their fault. but what are you gonna do. what can you do. 021022 Should I send her some money from my tax refund? Does that say “you can fuck up and I’ll bail you out because loving you makes me susceptible to being taken advantage of” or does it say “this situation sucks and wasn’t your fault and I can afford to help a little so I will because I love you”? zombies are scarier than ghosts. it’s whered everybody go? vs oh shit here they come 2nd person pov. the therapist reads yr thoughts. thats what they do. thats their job, period. and they tell them back to you she says you just want your brother to be proud of you she says youve learned deep shame around sex she says you have a basement full of half haunted memories clattering, stirring in their slumber, waiting i say if you tell a guy Thats not the way in and he goes in anyway or gets bored or mad and wanders or stalks away, then thats the wrong guy and it isnt your fault period also im afraid of people and would like to see a therapist now, please also i tend to get sloppy when i think im in an unassailable position which in case it isnt obvious i never am no one is and neither are you if youre not happy somewhere, find a way out 021322 went to anodyne with tom and that was nice even tho they don’t have free refills (anymore?) and the greenhaired girl was kind of gruff about it went to drumming with tom and mark soriano and a TON of people including michelle from the lake, michael and stellia (yay!), dan, and a bunch of other people including this like what, five year old kid that played drum set like a competent adult, and it was real nice, and when it was my turn i said: i am grateful to have discovered that i haven’t lost the ability to be pleasantly surprised by the energy in a room and I was also thinking: drum first then heartbeat they get more from drumming than from teaching most of the time but nothings ever always so basically just listen what if your classroom were a drum circle how would you talk to people what kinds of things would you say how would you relate to them do you think you’re better than them do you think you’re not good enough for them words first then meaning the wiki is also the drum circle let it be what it is play with it would the drum like it too? then yes here’s what i invite you to do. i can’t force you to do it, i’m not going to try to force you to do it my way it’s just an invitation come on in see what happens (that’s #pdp and #cw by the way) and then i got home and cel had plans for tomorrow with her friend madison, and lib didn’t, and lib went upstairs in a little bit of a “i/we never DO anything” funk and so i was like let’s go bowling even tho many parts of my mind and body were like o god no, but they didn’t have open lanes until like midnight, so we went to woodmans first and i let them lead and just go through the store looking for good stuff to buy, and i got every kind of taffee except it’s old and hard as shit lololololololol and then we came home and libby made kick ass pork butt and when we finally went bowling i was super tense and self conscious at first but kind of got over it and we all got a decent amount of gutter balls but in the long run who the fuck cares? it was fun and i was proud of myself for facing the outside world and stepping up and doing that for them. and i forgot to mention: at drumming, stellia came up to me and asked how i was, and i guess something in my face or tone or vibe was more honest than i realized when i answered cuz she said if you ever need someone to talk to, and it seemed like she meant it, and she had me text her so we would have each other’s numbers, and here’s what it says so far: Mat Schulte: hi it's mat! Stellia: Hola. 😊 This is Stellia. Mat Schulte: thanks for talking to me--didn't quite know i needed that Stellia: Matt, I am glad I did not overstep any boundaries. I am not much of a “texter”, but I enjoy conversing, either hanging out, over the phone, or via email ([email protected]). It was very nice to be back drumming and seeing you, and Tom, and Dan. Good energy going your way! …and I can’t even tell you how nice that is. In the old days I wouldve been all weird about it, but now she said, oh, look at your hair! (because it’s so long now) and then she turned her head so I could see and said “And look at mine” and I said “Oh that’s super cute the way it goes to both sides” and that felt like such a gay thing to say and it felt really natural and genuine and real, and that’s who i want to be right now. Visible. Relaxed. Myself. Seen. That’s the whole picture I’ve been working on for so many years, it’s almost laughable, but it’s ok. It’s never too late. > This is true. I find I have wasted a huge amount of my time with technology for very little real reward. It is kind of like a monkey in a cage pushing a lever to get a shot of some dopamine releasing substance. I am seriously considering disconnecting the internet at home. The thought seems unfathomable on the one hand on the other how did we as a society let this anti-social, time wasting vampiric force take over so much of our lives. It truly is like the frog boiled slowly. It is true valuable and useful information can be found online, but at the end of the day so much of it just does not matter to our daily life and even good information or positive social engagement can serve as a distraction from better, more real world uses of time, like going for a hike or building a house or falling in love or planting a garden or taking care of elders. – someone on HN I’m taking my FOMO and transmogrifying it into FONMOA—fear of *not* missing out on anything. Cuz like there’s too many things. The surfeit will poison you. This is happening RIGHT NOW: all four girls in the kitchen, momentarily, ephemerally. There are the remains of sushi. There are scattered valentines chocolates and peeps. There’s a stubby little bluetooth speaker playing random playlists, songs they all know and laugh at and sing bits and pieces of. There’s perfunctory studying. Cel casually swearing, naming the parts of a flower, pointing them out on a fake one from Millie’s gift bag. Megan drawing on her old iPad. Stories about the anime convention she & Mil just got back from. “Any other song requests?” Libby munching pocky and glancing at her planner. Millie on her phone interjecting odd sarcasms. They’re all “getting along,” but that’s not the thing I’m pointing out, trying to celebrate the photons and gravitons of. The thing is the hum, the wow & flutter, the flux, the fractal ebb and flow of the sounds they each make, interlacing, bubbling up, blossoming out, fading back like moonlit surf. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard in my life. It turns the homely kitchen into a candle, into a sweater, into molten gold. Millie’s hoofs hit the stairs and just as fast, Megan says “Where are you going!?” “I’ll be right back,” Millie says, and she means it, and that is wealth. 021922 shoulder aches kinda hafta shit all around creaky still net: grateful lib made tamales cel made a gargling noise from the kitchen during a heartfelt pause on supergirl and we cracked up millie coming home early from the cast party cuz theater kids scream too much and “also in a kind of weird depressed mood but ive had a couple of fun moments ig” megan returned to chi this morning, seeming kind of out of it but ok i guess? i hope? something’s off there, i can sense it but can’t separate out how much is quote just me unquote everything always so fraught, so taut, like a live wire > At the time of Ulysses’ copyright expiration, Arroyo had long since finished his own set of more than 300 illustrations for Joyce’s celebrated and famously intimidating novel. Arroyo noted in a 1991 essay, writes Minder, that “imagining the illustrations kept him alive when he was hospitalized in the late 1980s for peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdominal lining.” Can you imagine loving one book that much? 022022 libby said “Good night… love you more than cheese!” (which is a pretty high fucking honor btw) 022222 I want to be a teacher, but a *real* teacher. That’s not incompossible with being a *school* teacher, but it’s pretty much unrelated. As unrelated as whatever your day job might be. To be this requires listening. To people, not the idea of people. Shutting up of course, but then when you do have something to say, saying it as yourself, not the idea of yourself. It’s being a muddy mammal among muddy mammals; not standing apart or above. Unless apart or above is a position that is called for on any given day. It’s a collaborative effort between you and those who could use you as a teacher. All conclusions are temporary, including this one. An essay is an attempt. You make essays until you die, and then you’re dead. They’re as good as someone thinks they are; that someone can be you but your own mind is limited by the ceiling of its understanding, so don’t get complacent. Remember the Golden’s Golden (Sturgeon); remember whom you’re talking to; let the real essay be what you’re trying for, not the words themselves. If the words don’t create the desired effect in the real world, try something else. Create butterflies if butterflies give you joy, and trust the ripples whose ultimate utterance you will never hear. *Set them free—* which really means, set yourself free. The butterflies were already free. Ackowledgement of nuance and ambiguity and “information overload” doesn’t render obsolete or moot (or mute) such concepts as moral rectitude, justice, integrity. That there’s no guarantee of success doesn’t make pursuit of them invalid. That you may be played for a fool doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play at all. The fool steps off the cliff and starts the arcane sequence all over again, after all. Without the fool, there’d be no magician. Remember Amanda breathing her last breath? Stretching gloriously, sighing deeply, smoothly, and then stillness? 022322 its all just a continuous rough draft. when you think youre being so smart, so daring, so fresh and direct—thats probably the part youll be throwing away in the next revision, and not just throwing away but dangling from your fingertips over the bin, your face scrunched and nose averted as you realize how full of shit it really was all along. if ‘student of the month’ wasnt my exit ticket, my graduation speech, or my suicide note, then it’s basically emotive posturing, isnt it? aka bullshit? what if you could choose between a heady cocktail of daydreams, perfectionism, infantilism, preciousness, and the absolute power of never having to admit youre trying; or being just as vulnerable and shitty as the next working stiff, but having a sense of integrity as you flaunt your mistakes along with your modest successes? masturbating and dope; or being a ‘normal’ person with all the costs and benefits acruing thereto? of course its not that simple. i feel somewhat a sense of integrity in more or less supporting my family, even if my current gig is based on willing hypocrisy and ultimate conformity dressed up as moral courage. so i mean i wouldnt want to dump that. shit, if i were going to dump that, it almost seems like it should be for something full throatedly stupid, like being an ‘artist.’ but if i havent the nerve for that (and come on, how the hell old am i?) then is just switching jobs really worth it? maybe. feeling like a fake, a hypocrite, is not a particularly good feeling. can i ‘help anyone’ from within this staid institution? how much do i care? is helping people a priority, or does it just feel wrong to feel compelled to act like it is in a situation where i cant? or could i? could i be complicit in the lie and let the ends justify the means? but what are the ends? enough? do they? id say it comes down to a balancing act: dont change jobs for the sake of purity alone. do switch if you can find something that doesnt trade one soul poison for another. and thus, sevenish years in, the truth: this is ultimately a bullshit job. ive played a pretty good game so far; put my own spin on it, my own flair, so ive managed to stand out and do or say a few impressive things here and there. but you cant rest in a bullshit job. you gotta keep coming up with fresh shit cupcakes all the time. how long til you get just plain too tired to put the icing on anymore, and then youre just another zombie with a house? shit you dont even have a house, because of your whole first act where you slugged along being lazy and unfocused, too distracted by narcissism, hedonism dressed up as idealism, and punishingly high levels of naivety to take steps to secure some kind of even modest fortune. so where does that leave you? well, if the past two years have been any indication, it leaves you self medicating, watching tv, treading water, and waiting for the day your sympathetic superior either gets replaced by someone who doesnt think youre cute, or stays but transfers his favor to a new dancing sincere useful idiot puppet that does the little dance better (and younger and faster and more efficiently) than you. in other words waiting until your bluff gets called. with a backup plan to, what? feel superior because you were an artist all along? (better keep practicing the sleight of hand that makes up for not having produced any actual art) Because youre smarter and more for real than the herd that just kicked you out? (but if you werent willing to do the bullshit to keep your job, how are you going to muster the willpower to bullshit yourself into even pretending to believe thats true, without any actual, verifiable evidence outside of your own little make believe sandbox?) maybe the biggest bullshit is telling yourself its hard to bullshit... because of your innate integrity, i guess youre supposed to conclude? ha. bullshitting is the easiest thing in the world, if the motivations right. usually thats either your paycheck or your sense of self. two highly fungible, profane, kinda dirty things. this is not a very inspired place to be. so now what? all right then, we’ve got our next mid life crisis all figured out. time to get back to work. sigh. i hate work. 022522 I have to make things, yes. But I have to make things *for someone.* So if there’s no someone, the urge to make gets choked off, causes pain and disease, avoidance and strife. You have to find the someone. I have to find the someone. 022622 it is so strange to separate the voices to be an adult let the playful one play and the watchful one watch to be *the* adult in your children’s lives even stranger still to let them work it out for themselves to consider what comes after let them watch out for each other let them play win or lose after you’re gone ---- no matter what, you gotta have 2 things: 1. music 2. fun, complicated, thumping, thrusting, hilarious, absurd, beautiful things—activities, if you like—to distract you, to keep you from ruining (by taking it too seriously, not seriously enough, or whatever) the *real* thing you’re working on